Tag: Tattoos

The weekend is in the books, and although many of you were indulging in baseball playoffs and college football madness, there was plenty of MMA to equally boast and complain about. Apart from the always-vibrant regional circuit, which included MFC 41 and SFL 35 last Saturday night (watch a dude go through the cage door looking like he was on the wrong end of a Stone Cold Stunner right here), there were four major MMA shows taking place in 48 hours, two of which came from the same promotion that may or may not be ruining the sport with its inflated and overstressed schedule.

To top it all off, there were also a handful of stories outside the cage to boast about, some amusing and some downright miserable.

Here is the Cage Potato “Weekend Roundup,” and quite frankly, the only recap you need:

In case you haven’t been following this story, here’s the basic outline: On Saturday, the World Series of Fighting 11 NBC broadcast included a prelim bout between local Florida fighter Dustin Holyko and Neiman Gracie; Holyko lost by second-round submission. After noticing his unfortunate tattoos, BloodyElbow’s Brent Brookhouse did some digging and learned that Holyko had been arrested for everything from domestic battery (three times!) to animal cruelty, and is currently on probation for an “escape” charge in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Corrections.

Apparently, World Series of Fighting knew none of this before they booked Holyko, who was hired sight-unseen, without any sort of background check. After the controversy went public, WSOF immediately cut ties with the fighter, and released the following statement to Sherdog:

“Honestly, we were not aware of Dustin Holyko’s criminal record or any potentially offensive tattoos prior to him competing at WSOF 11. He was licensed by the Florida commission prior to the fight, and it was his third professional fight under their jurisdiction. That said, with the information that has since come to light, we immediately elected to terminate our relationship with Mr. Holyko.”

Sherdog adds that Holyko had been charged with 16 criminal offenses in total, according to public records, and that he’d been arrested as recently as April 23rd due to a probation violation. But of course, none of those arrests are Holyko’s fault — and neither are the offensive tattoos. Here are some quotes from a new MMAJunkie interview with Holyko, which paints the fighter as a standup guy who you’d be happy to bring home to mom…

There’s a lot of space to cover on that arm, and we’d love to see how you’d fill it. Using Photoshop, MS Paint, or a printer and actual crayons, please draw a new tattoo for Alan onto the image and send the resulting work to BG at bgoldstein@defymedia.com.

A week from today, we’ll pick our three favorites who will win…well, we’re not sure yet. Maybe some CagePotato shirts if we still have some left. Maybe just some shout-outs on Twitter. Maybe nothing. That’s what makes this contest “unofficial.” Take it or leave it. Good luck everybody, and follow Masato Toys on Facebook right here.

(Sakara will do absolutely anything to land this amateur modeling gig, you guys. Any. Thing. Props: MMACrypt.com)

The prevailing public opinion on Alessio Sakara has long been: Mediocre fighter, world class tattoos. Hell, even Jorge Rivera – who will fight him this Saturday at UFC 122 – admitted in interviews this week that he thinks Sakara has the best ink in MMA. With a middling 6-4 record in the Octagon (with one hard-earned no contest after Ron Faircloth kicked him in the balls at UFC 55) it’s even been suggested (OK, maybe just by me, but whatever) that the UFC’s rationale for giving him second chance after second chance has more to do with his wicked physical appearance than his actual fighting ability.

One glance at Sakara tells you he’s proud of his Italian heritage, but we had no idea exactly how into it he was until we got a load of his interview with Fighters Only this week. Turns out, not only does Sakara actually consider himself a modern day “solider of Rome” (his words), but he named his sons Leonidas and Marcus Valerian … which is not quite as weird as naming all your sons “Rampage,” but still. That’s dedication, people. Dedication to a proud history that ended in about 476 AD.

(In his own words: “Tattoos are my hobby. That is that.” Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

While you’re trying to figure out what witty zingers might pass between Aleksander Emelianenko, Vladimir Putin, and Jean-Claude Van Damme in our latest caption contest, you might be wondering to yourself, what ever became of Aleks after he was kicked off the Affliction event amid rumors that he may or may not have Hepatitis B? Well don’t worry. According to Aleks, it was all just a paperwork issue, as he explains to The Fight Network:

“I came late, couldn’t get my Visa in time and I was not allowed to fight. I’m healthy.”

That’s weird, because just last week M-1′s Raimond Joost said you had “medical issues.” Granted, he also expressed optimism that they could be resolved, but he sure as hell didn’t try and chalk the whole thing up to Visa troubles. Not to mention, if it was just a paperwork snafu, why would the CSAC’s Bill Douglas say this:

“The one thing that I can absolutely say is that he (Emelianenko) was not and will not be cleared to fight in California. He is officially denied a license and that will stand for all of the United States of America.”

Aleks, I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that you are lying to us, and doing a really bad job of it. Couldn’t you at least think of something more plausible? The strangest comment of the interview, however, was this one:

Joe Rogan has a new tattoo (well a few months old) which took over 5 sessions to complete, but it’s pretty amazing. Aaron Della Vedova from Guru Tattoo is the artist who did all of this amazing work. Apparently the sleeve tattoo depicts Joe’s DMT (Spirit Molecule) trip where he hallucinated and saw an Alien Thai Buddha made out of energy telling him not to give into astonishment. If you look at the molecule in the center of the tattoo it’s the DMT, Dimethyltryptamine, molecule.

Don’t do it, Joe! DO NOT GIVE IN TO ASTONISHMENT!!!

I can’t imagine a bigger hippie move than tattooing your own psychedelic vision on your arm. He’s going to run out of body space if he keeps taking up real estate like this. What if he has another, even crazier trip the next time he goes DMT’ing, and one of those machine elves is like “I would love it if you tattooed our little adventure on your left arm, that would really make me happy.” Because he’s basically screwed at that point.

As many of you are probably unaware, there’s an IFL event going down tonight in Uncasville, CT, which will feature Roy Nelson defending his heavyweight title against Brad Imes, and Ryan Schultz defending his lightweight belt against Deividas Taurosevicius. (You can watch the action live on HDNet beginning at 8:30 p.m. ET.) And here’s something you might not know about the IFL: They require all their fighters to get shitty tattoos on their shoulders. Honestly — the photos from the weigh-ins prove it. My favorite is Matt Horwich‘s (above left), which is a screaming pencil with musical notes coming out of its eraser. More insane ink after the jump.

He also talks about some other stuff, like his love of steak. But my goodness, if Lesnar can withstand the questions lobbed at him by these boring hacks, he can withstand just about anything. I got to the 4:41 mark before tapping out.